


Worship in The Bedroom

by diningwithpsychopaths



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, Cuddling, Episode: s03e07 Digestivo, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-14
Updated: 2015-08-14
Packaged: 2018-04-14 15:53:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4570413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/diningwithpsychopaths/pseuds/diningwithpsychopaths
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will wakes up to find himself tucked into bed back in Wolf Trap when he should be faceless and bleeding out at Muskrat Farm. He's confused but then Hannibal walks in and the two confront what they are and what they wanted to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worship in The Bedroom

Will is whole. His body aches. Even before his eyes open, before he moves, nauseous rises throw his mouth, up his nose, and all the way to his brain. Too much blood lost, and yet he can feel the skin of his face settled where it should be. Familiar. 

Despite the state of his body, he is warm. A warmth that only comes from the security of a blanket. He opens his eyes. A room lit by the weak light of a winter’s day. A gust of cold invades the room, rousing him further. He is in his house. In his bed.

He turns and there is Hannibal. The man hovers by the door and their eyes meet. Of course it’s Hannibal. The dark prince of this fairytale, rescuing him and bringing him back to the tower. 

Propping himself up against the back wall, Will can level his gaze at Hannibal who lingers beside his bed. There is a notebook beside Will’s leg. Equations, the hypothetical scribbles desperate to reverse time. Perhaps Hannibal lay beside him when they arrived, and desperately tried to work out how to fix this. It doesn’t appear that he found a solution. The past still lies bleak and bloody between them. Hannibal pauses beside the bed, unsure. He takes his notebook and opts to sit in the chair close to the bed.

“We’re supposed to be dead,” Will says. His voice rasps, and he almost asks for a glass of water.

“We escaped,” Hannibal says. His lips barely quirk. Proud. Will’s stomach churns, and he looks at his hands. Hannibal’s face bears wounds that will surely scar, just like the one at the corner of Will's on head. Will's body trembles even though the room is heated.

“I don’t mean Muskrat Farm.”

The shadow of a smile fades, and Hannibal grips the notebook in his hands. 

“Your forgiveness,” Hannibal says. “How did you imagine it, Will?” He leans forward. unable to control himself, but Will only stares back. It’s as though they’re back in Hannibal’s office. “Was the thought of the blade sliding through my skin arousing? And then what? Were you going to slit your own throat? Our blood mingling between our bodies until we were both drained. We would have been indistinguishable, both of us soaking into one another.”

Will can picture it, but his own vision is stronger. He shakes his head. “No. You were supposed to kill me.”

Hannibal leans forward. “Was I to use the same knife? As my insides gushed into your upturned palms to receive me, slipping past our fingers, I would pull out the blade, and return the favor? We would open each other wide enough that in death’s embrace a bit of me could slip into you and vice versa?”

“I figured you’d surprise me,” Will responds. 

“And now?”

Will sighs and looks past Hannibal to the empty dog beds piled in a corner. His throat tightens, he should have asked for water. 

“Surviving doesn’t surprise me anymore.”

“And you are stronger for it,” Hannibal says, his voice hushed. “Your memory palace is building. It has some new things. It shares some rooms with my own.” He pauses, but Will has nothing to say. “I’ve discovered you there. Victorious.”

This is the closet he’s ever seen Hannibal to being desperate. Not even in his kitchen when he reached out for Will. It would have been appropriate then, but not now. Now that they have both tried to kill one another. Now that they have both saved one another. 

“There can be no victory between us,” Will says. “This game has reached an impasse.”

“Then allow it to evolve,” Hannibal pleads. His voice is heavy. “We no longer need to dance around one another. The teacup can come together.”

Will closes his eyes and shakes his head. The teacup is not just for them.

“The shards scattered are lodged too deep to forget,” Will admits. “A bullet that can never be extracted, and so the skin must grow over it. The muscle and tendons stretched minutely to accommodate its intrusion.”

“There’s therapy for that.”

A strangled laugh leaves Will. It’s almost a sob. 

“Why are you here?” Will asks. 

“Where else would I take you?”

“Why are you still here?”

Hannibal sets his notebook aside as if to stand, but can’t seem to push himself to do so. “Your phone is on the bedside table. It's charged,” Hannibal whispers.

Sure enough, Will’s cell lays within reach. It’s as though Hannibal has slapped him.

“You think I would call the cops?” his voice cracks on the last word. 

“Wouldn’t you?”

It’s bitter, but Will isn’t going to apologize for trying to capture Hannibal. He was going to run away with him, but Hannibal was the one who did not want to listen. 

“I thought you were going to kiss me in your kitchen,” Will admits after a few minutes of silence. 

Hannibal’s eyes widen and soften. “So did I.”

“Why didn’t you?”

Hannibal finally stands. He sheds his coat, setting it on the chair, and then sits on the corner of Will’s bed. They aren’t touching, but the dip in the bed might as well be a caress. 

“Are you going to leave, again?” Will asks.

Hannibal looks at him from beneath his lashes. “Would you come with me?”

The inevitability of the question brings them to their tipping point. Will wonders if Hannibal has a knife hidden in his coat. Just in case.

“They found you in Florence,” Will says. He’s evading an answer, but the disorientation he felt upon first waking has increased. Will licks his lips, but his tongue is almost as dry as his mouth. Hannibal splays the fingers of his right hand on the sheets. The tips of his fingers nearly brush against Will’s calf.

“You must be exhausted,” Hannibal says. “Perhaps a light snack and some milk.”

“I should still have peanut butter and saltine crackers in the cupboard.”

Hannibal nods, and stands up to fetch some nourishment.

Lying back on his bed, Will can pretend domesticity if he closes his eyes. The late winter day drawing to a close while Hannibal is in the kitchen. Will waiting for him in bed. In a perfect world they could repeat this moment in time again and again. Day after day. The dryness in Will’s throat suddenly has little to do with thirst. He presses his face against the pillow. His skin scrunches into a grimace. 

“Will.”

Will turns to see Hannibal with a paper plate of dainty looking peanut butter crackers and a large cup of milk. Why he has fresh milk is a mystery he may never solve. Neither of them are fit to walk into a convenience store. Perhaps Chiyoh found Hannibal and hovers nearby. Still protecting him.

“Thanks,” Will says, and takes the plate.

This time Hannibal sits beside Will in bed. A child sized space between them. Once Will finishes with the crackers and milk, Hannibal sets them on the bedside table. The sloppiness doesn’t seem to register.

“You would be well within reason to demand that I leave,” Hannibal says after they have been silent for a while.

“The thought has crossed my mind.”

Hannibal nods and begins to leave the bed. Without thinking about it, Will reaches out, and places his hand on Hannibal’s knee. 

“It was only a thought. Unless you have somewhere you need to be.”

Hannibal stills, his gaze focused on Will’s knee. Hannibal’s slacks are still cold. He must be just as exhausted as Will is, if not more. He managed to get Will and himself from Maryland to Wolf Trap, and it couldn’t have been with ease. And there is no evidence of Hannibal resting while Will slept.

“Will,” Hannibal chokes out.

Will squeezes his knee. “Perhaps in the morning,” Will whispers.

Hannibal with whatever strength Hannibal has left, he quickly presses himself against Will. His fingers tangle in Will’s hair, and Will hisses at the roughness and the grip lessen minutely. Hannibal's lips graze against the cut from the bone-saw back in Florence. The thin mouth whispers down, past Will's bangs. He pauses and Will's heart pounds in anticipation, but Hannibal simply kisses a small incision along his jawline.

Will wants to cry. He never realized just how much Hannibal adores him; just how much this man would be content to worship him. Will trembles in Hannibal’s arms. One hand grips Hannibal’s knee while the other is useless on his own lap.

Hannibal maneuvers them to lie down, facing one another. Carefully entangled in one another. Will can feel Hannibal’s chest expand as he takes in Will’s scent like an alcoholic guzzling from the bottle during a relapse. His exhales tickle Will’s skin. Will buries his face in the crook of Hannibal’s neck. His skin is warm under Will’s tongue. Alive.

They remain in their embrace, inhaling and tasting one another for hours. Occasionally their lips brush, but their clothes remain on with only a few shirt buttons undone. Their intimacy is fragile. The scattered remains of their tea-cup at risk of being stepped on. However, they share the same triggers and so they are easily avoided. No words pass between them save for a few whispered awed breathes that contain the other’s name. 

Hannibal is not gentle, but the sink of his teeth in Will's skin, the scratch of his blunt nails against his skin, they are not malicious. It is a worship in the Dionysian sense, and yet as chaste as the Virgin of Catholicism. The blood they have collected from one another has already been spilled in preparation for their union.

Will is Hannibal's Madonna. He strokes Hannibal's hair as he holds his cheek with a hand that trembles. Hannibal's lips whisper across his wounds with murmured reverence. He is his sacrifice. His neck arches back as Hannibal bites the junction of skin between Will's neck and shoulder. Should the roof collapse upon them, it would be they who become God. Any stories written about them would persist in awed myth.

The sky outside grows dark as they revel in the rawness they have discovered in one another. Neither willing to revert back to subtext. They exist together. Whole and desperate to submit to their worship of each other and the bur of body and mind they find themselves entangled in.

When the room grows completely dark they are left breathing in the other. Their fingers entwined. Their lips brush momentarily every few seconds. There is no need for anything beyond the heat of their bodies and the exhale of essence so that the other might inhale him into himself. 

And then there is the glare of headlights. The light reflects in Hannibal’s dark eyes as small pin-pricks of hell fire. Will pulls him closer and closes his eyes. His lips already attached through the dried salt of sweat to Hannibal's throat. Perhaps it is only a lost car. The light will soon turn around and the cocoon he and Hannibal exist in together will reassemble itself. But the room brightens further with every second. Red, blue, and white flashing against their skin. The wail of sirens is irrefutable.

“Hannibal-“-Will begins, his voice breaking.

“Shhhh.” Hannibal presses his lips against Will’s forehead. 

Tears fill Will's eyes and when they spill from the corners of his eyes, they trail down the indent of their flesh. He can’t focus on Hannibal properly, and he grips him tighter.

“You must let go, my dear Will,” Hannibal coaxes.

“No.”

“I will not let them have us both.”

“Then run,” Will begs. “Please, Hannibal.”

“My dear Will.”

Hannibal brushes his lips beneath Will’s eyes, and then he is gone before Will can protest further. Will reaches out, but Hannibal is no longer there. The sound of the back door closing echoes in the house. 

The crunch of tires on the snow outside siphons through the cracks around his window. He can’t stay in bed. They will find Hannibal’s DNA all over the sheets. All over him, and what can he say? That Hannibal molested him? They’re already going to make a joke out of him in the tabloids. There is no need for further tastelessness to fuel the ravenous fishwives of the media.

Will puts on his glasses and jacket, and walks outside. 

Jack stands before him. A team of gun wielding agents behind him. Will is almost relieved to see the man alive.

“He’s gone, Jack,” Will says.

“Jack.”

Will’s heart plummets. Hannibal emerges from the shadows behind Will’s house. His arms raised in surrender. Will wants to scream at him. Push him away and distract the agents so that Hannibal can flee, but he knows that it would do no good.

Hannibal banters with Jack, but it’s all white-noise. The rush of the bitter winter wind roars in his ears, but then Hannibal is looking at him. 

“I want you to know exactly where I am,” Hannibal says, “and where you can always find me.”

He can’t respond. To do so would ruin what Hannibal has done for him, but he wants to.

They take Hannibal away and Jack says something to him, but it doesn't register. Soon Will is left on his porch in the darkness. He needs a glass of water and probably some pain killers, but all he can do is stumble back into his house. Back to the bed he had shared with Hannibal moments ago.

The pillow still smells like Hannibal, and so do the sheets, but Will knows this will be replaced with his own in time. His hand rests on his abdomen where he knows his scar to be. This, at least, will never fade.

**Author's Note:**

> I adored the way the scene happened in the show, but I also needed some heart breaking Hannigram intimacy. I hope you enjoyed :)


End file.
